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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel tricked and taken advantage of?

508 replies

OohMavis · 09/02/2016 14:28

I'm a cakemaker. Valentines is a busy time of the year, but last week DH's brother asked me to make a cake for his girlfriend, so him being family, I fit him in last minute with a discount, price was agreed last week.

He came to pick it up today but instead of paying me, he's told me to ask DH for the money, because DH borrowed it from him and off he went with his cake.

I had no idea DH owed him money. It was for some tickets to a show they went to together which his brother bought on his card for convenience. DH just forgot about it.

AIBU to feel as though he's basically got a free cake out of me, and feel really bloody annoyed and tricked? I'm not going to be paid for the cake (our finances are completely joint, BIL knows this, it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me). My time has been wasted. I turned down a paying order for him.

Just so angry!

OP posts:

OnlyLovers · 09/02/2016 17:02

OP, no, I wouldn't do that. The most I'd do would be to ask if I could offset a debt like that; if the person said no, you'll need to actually pay me for it, that would be fine.

It's the not discussing it that's fucking rude and cheeky, not the 'technicalities' or strictly financial implications that some posters are focusing on.

I really think those in the 'it's OK' camp must be a bit lacking in the concept of behaving decently.

arethereanyleftatall · 09/02/2016 17:02

Yes, I'd do it, if I knew they had a joint account. Wouldn't think twice, and it wouldn't be because I thought I was being sneaky. It would be just the obvious thing to do.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 17:02

We still don't know if the op actually pays tax.
But in any case it just means that she transfers the cash in or records it as payment on her accounts.

The result is still the same with or without tax.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 17:04

But gruntled the DH can just put the money into the business! that's what the BIL proposed. He didn't say you can pay me back from the business, he said you can get your DH to pay the money he owes me to you. The only reason there could be a problem here is if the DH does not have the money to balance the books.

Or to put it another way, the OP has an unpaid cake debt owed by BIL who is not keen to give case. She has a choice of pursuing BIL to pay, who will then have to pursue DH for that separate debt. Or she can pursue DH for the money, which in effect means transferring money from a joint account to which she has access. Surely the latter is preferable to any business-person??

OnlyLovers · 09/02/2016 17:05

I don't see how not clearing payment method with the maker in advance is NOT sneaky. It's no one else's business to decide that offsetting is OK because of the maker's financial set-up. Why on earth would you think it was OK to make a unilateral decision about someone else's business like that?

GruntledOne · 09/02/2016 17:05

You weren't strictly tricked because you didn't lose out money overall, as you stated in your OP because you have joint finances and your OH paying you would be pointless.

As demonstrated in the post immediately above that one, OP did lose out, because if she had been told that BiL didn't propose to pay her she would have refused the order and taken one at full price from a paying customer instead.

BiL is a bit of an idiot anyway, because I take it he can now wave goodbye to any prospect of a discount on cake in the future. OP needs to make that lost profit up somehow, after all.

LeaLeander · 09/02/2016 17:05

It would mean giving the BIL a cake he had never wanted.

But you think it's OK to trick the OP into spending time and effort she never wanted to spend, to repay BIL? Perhaps some of you are not involved in creative pursuits but this is not swapping a cake from Tesco's for the debt. There is mental/creative energy, time and effort involved. I am a writer by trade, for example. If I agree to polish someone's resume or fix up their website or help them write a verse for their grandmother's birthday, there is more to it than the nominal value of my time as I charge it to paying clients. That's why I seldom do writing-related favors and if I owed a debt I would want to repay it in cash, not be hoodwinked into taking on a writing job.

There's more to this equation than the retail value or discounted value of the cake; it's that the BIL has such little respect for the OP that he thinks it's OK to arbitrarily use up her time and make her work off her husband's debt without her consent.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 17:05

I agree it should have been mentioned before, but it certainly didn't leave the OP in a worse position, and, as I pointed out before, he could easily have thought the op knew about the debt and was being cheeky by charging him on top instead of offering to offset the cost against the debt.
It would be interesting to have his take on this.
And certainly not the big deal that it's being made of.

Grapejuicerocks · 09/02/2016 17:07

only
I wrote the hypothetical conversation the way I did because she said earlier on I'd have told him to speak to DH about it. I'd have most certainly taken a paying order instead.

GruntledOne · 09/02/2016 17:07

Yes, I'd do it, if I knew they had a joint account. Wouldn't think twice, and it wouldn't be because I thought I was being sneaky. It would be just the obvious thing to do.

But surely you would clear it with them beforehand, arethere, not just announce it after they've done all the work for you and given you the goods?

DamedifYouDo · 09/02/2016 17:07

YABU I don't see how you have been tricked! If your bil had handed you £30 cash and then your dh had handed him £30 to clear the debt what is the difference?

You are making this into a huge issue!

Lweji · 09/02/2016 17:08

Presumably the OP took BIL's order before she declined another customer... so it's not as simple as she'd take amother instead of BIL's.
Unless she cancelled that customer's order.

flippinada · 09/02/2016 17:09

It's not about the money though, is it? It's about the OP feeling tricked and the BIL creating bad feeling which could have been completely avoided if he had just been honest in the first place.

It's a business, like any other which offers a service that takes a certain level of time, skill and resources to provide. When you procure a service from a business, you do so uon the understanding you will pay for it.

OP agreed to provide a service, at a discount, as a favour to her BIL with the understanding she would be paid for providing said service. It's not OK for him to unilaterally decide he's not going to pay for that service unless it was agreed in advance.

Now, I don't know about anybody else here but when I go to work I expect to be paid for the service I provide. I don't do it for free because it is my job, not my hobby.

I'm wondering if some of the responses here are because some people think cake making isn't a proper job.

GruntledOne · 09/02/2016 17:09

it certainly didn't leave the OP in a worse position

Why, when she's said that, had she been given the choice, she would have refused the order and taken a full price one instead?

GruntledOne · 09/02/2016 17:10

Presumably the OP took BIL's order before she declined another customer... so it's not as simple as she'd take amother instead of BIL's.

But that's the point, isn't it? She wouldn't have accepted the order had he been open with her, therefore she would have taken another customer's full price order instead.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 17:10

If someone owed me a debt personally I wouldn't have a problem proposing that I offset the debt against a service they provided me in the course of their business. I'd be pretty reluctant to pay them actually if they didn't accept, as I'd be worried that I wouldn't see the money again.

I think the problem here is that you are acting both like DH personally owed the debt - ie it had nothing to do with you - and like you can't get the money off DH because you have joint finances.

You need to decide whether your finances are joint or not and therefore whether the debt was owed out of the joint personal account or not. If you decide DH did not owe the debt out of the joint personal account, then you need to get DH to pay for the cake out of his own money. If you decide that DH did owe the money out of the joint personal account, then you need to accept that as joint account holder you also owed the money, and you therefore just need to transfer the money from the joint personal account to the business account.

Original poster

OohMavis · 09/02/2016 17:12

Presumably the OP took BIL's order before she declined another customer... so it's not as simple as she'd take amother instead of BIL's.

It is pretty much that simple, you always get people trying to place last-minute orders, which is helpful in the cases of blank diary spaces and cancellations. If he'd told me at the time of ordering, and still refused to pay after I'd said no thanks, I could have taken another last-minute order.

OP posts:

rookiemere · 09/02/2016 17:12

So are you saying that if he had walked into the next room at the time of ordering the cake, got the 30 from your DH then given it to you that would have been fine, but because he did it as an IOU from your DH then it wasn't?

He isn't not paying you, he's using a debt from DH to pay you. Granted I'd rather have the cash myself, but your DH should give you that cash.

whatevva · 09/02/2016 17:12

it certainly didn't leave the OP in a worse position

She has wasted her time and effort. He already had £30 out of her in discount. She could have just given him the £30, had he asked, and made a cake at profit. She did not know it was about the money. It is nothing to do with her - it is their argument.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 17:12

I think some people are having trouble with the idea that cancelling a debt of £30 is just as much payment as handing over £30 in cash.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 17:13

He didn't arbitrarily use the OP.
The OP arbitrarily decided that she'd rather not do the cake for BIL if she knew the debt would be paid by the cake instead of in cash. When it makes no difference to her bank account!

He wanted the cake and she was happy to make one for him.
He didn't say another completely separate party would pay, but that it was the same as him paying her and collecting the debt from her hands instead of from the hands of her OH because they have joint finances.

Grapejuicerocks · 09/02/2016 17:13

I think the op has contradicted herself.

I'd have told him to speak to DH about it. I'd have most certainly taken a paying order instead.

Then later
Yes I'll make you a cake at mates rates for £30
Ok can you off set it against the debt?
No, talk to dh about it.
Ok I'll get the money off him. When can I pick the cake up. Do you want the £30 in cash or by cheque?
Either is fine, thanks BIL

Which is it op?

LeaLeander · 09/02/2016 17:15

Just because people find it an interesting point of discussion doesn't mean it's being made into a "huge issue." No one is held to the thread by force, after all.

I guess there is a divide between those who don't understand a) the rudeness of drawing a third party into a debt between brother and b) the rudeness of unilaterally usurping the time and effort the OP puts into her business, at a peak period, instead of openly negotiating the repayment of the debt.

My sister bought a $50 bag of dog food for me last fall when she was passing the shop and I keep forgetting to repay her. I do paid editing work for her husband and can tell you, my BIL would not dream of saying "you owe Lizzie $50 so I'll be taking it off this month's invoice." Particularly after the fact. What is between my sister and me stays between us.

In fact come to think of it she owes me $65 for a craft item I purchased on her behalf, as a gift to one of her friends, in December. Cannot picture the circumstances under which we would say "Well, you owe me $50 but I owe you $65 so here is the $15 " any more than I would hand her a bill at the end of a meal at my house. Our sisterly exchange of favors has no bearing on the overall finances of the household and I would not dream of dipping into their larger pool of money, or vice versa, to grab my repayment, the way the BIL tried to make his brotherly favor the OP's problem.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 17:15

If he'd told me at the time of ordering, and still refused to pay after I'd said no thanks, I could have taken another last-minute order.

but you say you were nonetheless planning to repay BIL? so essentially you'd do him a favour if you didn't owe him money, but because you did owe money you wouldn't do the favour? makes no sense to me unless there are serious cashflow problems (which prob means BIL was right to think he wasn't going to get repayment in cash!)

Aeroflotgirl · 09/02/2016 17:16

The transaction was between you and your BIL, the issue about DH owing your BIL is different. He was less than honest with you.

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